


something make my chest stir

by CitrusVanille



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: COVID-19, Coronavirus, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Get Together, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Quarantine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26641456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CitrusVanille/pseuds/CitrusVanille
Summary: Patrick's handling quarantine just fine, until he starts getting symptoms – low-grade fever, difficulty breathing, coughing – and he knows what they mean, but the tests keep coming back negative. And then he starts coughing up flower petals.
Relationships: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Comments: 9
Kudos: 145
Collections: 1988: Locked In





	something make my chest stir

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to amoergosum for putting up with all my whining and stressing and typos, you're a rockstar always, and sincerest apologies to thathockey for not getting anything in on time - you were lovely!

It’s a formal event. For a charity, probably, but Patrick can’t quite remember which one, and it doesn’t much matter, anyway, because Jonny has just asked him to dance, here, in front of all of these people, and he’s looking absolutely devastating in his suit, from his perfectly knotted tie right down to the blades of his skates. It’s everything Patrick has ever wanted and never thought he’d have. He must say yes, because they’re dancing, skating easily across the dancefloor. Jonny’s got one hand low and firm against the small of Patrick’s back, the other holding Patrick’s hand carefully, palm to palm, and Patrick can feel that little bit of skin-on-skin contact right down to his toes. Jonny’s grinning, hair getting a little long again like he hasn’t let it in ages.

“You weren’t worried about everyone watching?” Patrick asks. The fact that Jonny’s never shown any interest at all let alone in front of other people doesn’t seem quite as important just now.

“Who’s watching?” Jonny asks. “It’s just us.”

Patrick blinks and looks around, over Jonny’s shoulder as they pivot, and then tries to look back over his own shoulders, one then the other, but Jonny’s right. It’s just them. “Oh, I was worried,” Patrick says.

“Isn’t this what you wanted, though?” Jonny gives him a rakish grin. “Just the two of us? Alone together?”

“Well, yes,” Patrick admits, “usually.” He coughs, turning his head automatically, and when he looks back, Jonny’s somehow closer, breathing his air. “I just didn’t think you did,” he adds, tries to clear his throat against the persistent tickle, then has to turn to cough again.

“I’ve got something for that,” Jonny tells him, almost abrupt, and then he’s pulling away, tugging Patrick’s hand as he leads him to the edge of the ballroom.

Patrick’s chest feels tight, and he coughs again, harder, but follows gamely enough. He trusts Jonny.

Jonny stops in front of a mass of bushes growing up from the ice of the dancefloor. He reaches out and picks one of the flowers. “Here,” he says, offers it to Patrick. “This will help.”

Patrick takes it, turns it over in his fingers. The petals are deep purple and velvety soft, with a bright yellow center. “What is it?” he asks, tries to muffle his next cough in his shoulder.

“It’s my heart,” Jonny tells him, matter-of-fact.

“Oh,” Patrick nods, because that makes sense, coughs again. The coughing goes on longer this time.

“You eat it,” Jonny tells him when he stops. “It will make you feel better.”

“Oh,” Patrick says again, then starts full-on hacking and can’t stop, drops the flower as he bends double – and then he’s sitting up in bed, still hacking, chest tight, can’t breathe, feels like there’s something lodged in his chest, in his throat. Finally, with a particularly vicious cough, something moves, and he can cough it up, spits into his hands, can’t even begin to think how disgusting that might be, just has to focus on breathing.

After several long moments, he doesn’t quite feel like he’s going to asphyxiate. His first thought is, _What the fuck was I dreaming?_ followed almost immediately by, _Shit, what if I’ve got the virus?_ Because his chest is still tight, and even though he can breathe now, it still feels like he’s fighting his lungs.

Another few breaths, each one easier, and he calms enough to think a little more rationally. “Don’t be an idiot, Kane,” he tells himself out loud. “You had a bad dream and a coughing fit and worked yourself into a panic. Everything’s crazy right now. Just chill.” He reaches out to turn on the light next to his bed, and realizes he’s holding something. He frowns, twists to reach the light with his other hand, and looks down. There’s a small pile of purple petals in his hand, slightly damp, and, in his lap, a full flower with a bright yellow center. “The hell?”

For a long minute he just sits there, staring. Then, firmly, he gives himself a mental shake, and then a physical shake, just for the effect. “Deal with it in the morning,” he mutters, because he can breathe now, but nothing makes any sense. He dumps the flower and petals over the side of the bed, shuts the light off, and flops back onto his pillow. “In the morning,” he says again to the darkness, and determinedly shuts his eyes.

When Patrick wakes up to his alarm yelling at him several hours later, he doesn’t remember dreaming or waking up in the middle of the night at all.

+

“Have you been getting tested every couple days?” Jonny’s voice demands over the phone when Patrick answers.

“Hello to you, too,” Patrick rolls his eyes, trusting Jonny will hear it in his tone, and shifts so he can jam the phone between his ear and shoulder while he finishes making his sandwich.

“Patrick,” Jonny’s tone is not amused. “Why have you been getting tested every couple days?”

Patrick huffs out a breath directly into the microphone. “Why does anyone get tested, Jonathan?”

“You’re sick?”

Patrick shrugs the shoulder not holding the phone, even though Jonny can’t see it. “Apparently not. I’m probably just being stupid.” The way his chest is getting tight again doesn’t feel stupid, and Patrick carefully breathes away from the phone.

“You have symptoms?” Jonny presses.

“Maybe.” Patrick stares at his sandwich, suddenly not very hungry anymore.

“Kaner?”

Patrick holds the phone away, covering it tightly with one palm while he coughs. It doesn’t fully ease the tension under his ribs, but it does feel like something shifts.

“Kaner, what was that?” Jonny’s still talking.

“Sorry,” Patrick says, automatically, bringing the phone back to his ear. “Just.”

“Was that coughing?”

Patrick sighs. “Yeah. That and some trouble breathing, mostly. And an elevated temperature, but not enough to be a fever.”

There’s a long silence on the other end. Patrick covers the phone and coughs again. It doesn’t help this time.

“But you’ve been negative,” Jonny says when Patrick stops coughing. It’s not a question.

“Yeah, I’ve been negative. How did you even find out I was being tested?”

“They tell me things so I can do my captainly duties,” Jonny says, deadpan.

“I didn’t know gossiping was a captainly duty.”

“I didn’t know snark was an A’s.”

“I’m off-duty. If we’re not on the ice, it’s still Seabs’s.”

“Kaner.”

“What do you want me to say?”

There’s a huff of breath directly into Patrick’s ear. “Maybe it’s a bad cold?”

“Maybe,” Patrick allows. “Or maybe it’s a low-grade flu. Or maybe it’s pneumonia. Or maybe it’s stress. Or maybe it’s the damn virus, and the tests are shit.” Patrick stops to cough again, chest tighter than ever.

“Do you want me to come over?” Jonny asks this time, when Patrick stops.

“And do what, get sick yourself? Not fucking likely.” It feels like something’s clenching down on Patrick’s lungs as he grits out the half-lie. He wants to see Jonny, wants to let him make stupid smoothies and nasty – but supposedly healthy – home cures, and just generally be the most awkward mother hen ever, but the idea of Jonny getting sick because of him makes him feel nauseous, on top of feeling like there’s a fist under his ribs.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Jonny snaps.

“You don’t be an idiot,” Patrick manages to retort, and it’s not the wittiest he’s ever been, but he’s more focused right now on trying to get air into his lungs, and the bit of his brain not focused on breathing is starting to panic, because as stressed as his symptoms have made him, they’ve never been this bad. “I have to go,” he wheezes out. “I’ll talk to you later.” He hangs up before Jonny can say anything, drops the phone to the counter, and proceeds to try to cough up his lungs.

It feels like he’s choking, struggling to breathe as he coughs. Patrick grips the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles go white. A particularly vicious cough makes something shift, and Patrick can feel it in his throat, his mouth, and he spits into the sink. He’s expecting some kind of gross wad of mucus. Instead, there’s a handful of purple flower petals slowly sliding towards the drain.

Patrick stares, panting, for a long minute. “What the fuck?”

+

When in doubt for most things, Patrick has a policy to call his mother. Moms always know best, after all. If he can’t call her, though, he calls his sisters, and hopes it’s worth the shit he gets for it.

“Still think you have the plague?” Jackie asks when she picks up, because she’s insensitive and was probably dropped on her head as a child.

“The pandemic isn’t funny, Jacqueline,” Patrick tells her, trying to sound stern with a tight chest. His breathing has eased some since he hacked up the flower petals, but it’s still not great.

“No,” Jackie agrees. “It’s not. But you’ve been tested, what, fifty times in the last two days, and you’re still negative? So your boo-hooing about having a nasty cold is fair game.”

Patrick scowls at his cupboards, since he can’t scowl at his sister. “I have not been tested fifty times.”

“That’s the part you’re taking umbrage at?”

“I need to tell you something,” Patrick says, because he doesn’t have to take this abuse.

He can _feel_ his sister rolling her eyes. “So tell me. I don’t have time for your drama. Some of us still have to work, even if we can’t go anywhere.”

“If I told you I was coughing up flower petals, what would you say?”

“Pull the other one, Patty.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Patrick –”

“Jackie, I’m serious.”

There’s a long pause. Patrick opens his fridge and looks around for something to eat to keep from fidgeting.

“Have you talked to your doctor?”

“I’ve _been_ talking to –”

“About the flower petals,” Jackie cuts in. She says _flower petals_ like she’s putting air quotes around it. Patrick is strongly reminded of the time Jessica was convinced she’d see a Grim, and Jackie had been less than impressed by her big sister’s descriptions of what turned out to be a neighbor’s cousin’s dog.

“No,” Patrick admits, shutting the fridge again, empty handed. “But it’s new.” He pauses, frowns, because that doesn’t feel right, but he can’t quite put his finger on why.

“Patty?”

Patrick shakes himself and turns to lean back against the fridge. “Sorry, just. It’s like déjà vu?” he tries.

“You think you’ve coughed up flowers before?” if anything, Jackie sounds even more skeptical.

“No. Yes. Maybe?” Patrick hisses through his teeth in irritation, then starts coughing again. When he stops, there’s silence on the other end. “Look, if _you_ think this is weird, imagine how _I_ feel.” He can hear his voice going up a little, but doesn’t bother to try to stop it. “This is freaking me out, and I have no idea –” he breaks off again to cough.

The silence this time is somehow heavier.

“Look,” Patrick says eventually, keeps his voice as steady as he can, breathes carefully to avoid setting off another coughing fit. “I know this all sounds crazy. I _know_ , okay? But I was on the phone with Tazer, and started coughing, and then there were these purple flower petals coming out of my mouth, so I hung up and called you, because if you can’t tell your baby sister you’re either going nuts or about to strangle on plants growing out of your throat, who can you tell?”

“You’re actually serious with this shit,” Jackie says, but it’s not a question this time. She sounds a little stunned. Which is fair. Patrick still feels more than a little stunned.

“I can – they’re probably still in the drain. I can send you pictures.”

“No, that’s okay,” Jackie says hastily, and Patrick can almost see her waving her hands in the air to emphasize her point. It’s kind of comforting. “I don’t need to see your spit-up flowers. Did you eat seeds, or something? Is this like when you tried to convince me if I swallowed watermelon seeds, a watermelon would grow in my stomach? But actually a thing that’s happening?”

Patrick makes a face. “Why would I eat plant seeds? No. Unless someone stuck something in my food, and I feel like that would be hard to miss. And that was Erica, not me.”

“It does sound like something Erica would have done. Okay. Well. I don’t actually have any other ideas. Maybe ask Erica or Jess? I have a call in a couple minutes, so I have to go, but Erica’s around here somewhere, I’ll tell her to call you.”

“Right.” Patrick lets his head thunk back against the fridge and tells himself he’s not being abandoned by his sister. He did call her in the middle of her work day.

“Don’t freak out, Patty. We’ll figure it out. By our powers combined, right?”

Patrick rolls his eyes, but it does make him feel better. “Right,” he says again.

“Keep me posted on the internal garden.”

“Goodbye, Jacqueline.”

“Bye, Pat. Love you.”

“You, too.”

+

Patrick relocates to his living room to call Erica. If he’s going to have another conversation like the one he just had with Jackie, he wants to be comfortable. Before he can call her, though, his phone vibrates, Jonny’s name flashing up on the screen. Patrick feels his chest tighten. He answers the phone coughing.

“Patrick?” Jonny’s voice has that edge that means he called because he’s pissed, but however Patrick sounded when he answered now has him concerned. It’s probably not a good thing that Patrick knows exactly how that makes Jonny sound.

Another hacking cough, and something shifts. Patrick grabs a tissue from the table next to the couch just in time to spit out three more flower petals, all the same – slightly damp – shade of deep purple. Patrick stares at them for a long moment before realizing Jonny is still saying his name.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“What the hell? You just hang up on me, no explanation, and now this? It sounds like you’re trying to cough up your lungs. Does your doctor know what’s going on? Are you spitting up blood?”

“No, just flowers.” He didn’t mean to say it, but now it’s out there.

“Flowers?” Jonny doesn’t sound skeptical like Jackie did, just very confused. “Kaner, what’s going on? Are you joking?”

For half a second, Patrick thinks about saying yes, he’s joking. He thinks about saying he’s spoken to his doctor, and it’s just a bad cold. He thinks about telling Jonny not to worry about it, he’s been overreacting, and he’ll be fine.

Just as quickly, he disregards the idea. He doesn’t want to lie to Jonny. Not about something like this.

“No, I’m not joking, I’m actually coughing up flowers, I have no idea what’s going on.” And he starts laughing, which really doesn’t help his case for not-joking, but the edge of hysteria he could feel building through his conversation with Jackie has broken through, and he’s pretty sure if he weren’t laughing, he’d be crying.

After what feels like a long time, but has probably only been a minute or two at most, Patrick starts to get himself under control, and realizes Jonny’s talking. Patrick’s pretty sure whatever he’s saying is something useless and awkward, but his tone is calm and Patrick latches onto that, lets the familiarity of it wash over him, soothing and grounding.

“Thanks,” Patrick says eventually, cutting Jonny off in the middle of whatever he was saying.

Jonny hums. “You good now?”

Patrick opens his mouth to say yes, maybe another thank you, even, because he’d never say it outright, certainly not directly to Jonny, but apart from his family, Jonny’s the only person he knows he can always count on to be there, and that means more than anything, especially right now when Patrick feels like he’s falling off the deep end. What comes out is more coughing, hard and painful, and angry in Patrick’s ears.

It ends with the shifting feeling in Patrick’s chest and another handful of petals in a tissue, more than he’s seen so far, including what looks like almost an entire flower head, dark purple and golden yellow and terrifying.

Jonny’s talking again, concerned enough that he’s fallen into his Captain-on-the-Ice voice, still calm, but confident and full of _we can do it_ attitude. It’s the voice he uses when everyone’s convinced they can’t do it, and Jonny needs to drag them to the win by his own willpower alone. It’s equal parts aggravating and inspiring, and it has saved more than one rookie from completely losing his head. And Patrick’s not a rookie, can’t _win_ this, but it helps him to keep from losing his head again all the same.

With a hand that shakes a little – and isn’t that as utterly chilling as anything – Patrick pulls his phone away from his ear long enough to snap a picture and send it.

Jonny cuts himself off this time. “Did you just send me – what is this?”

“That’s what I’m coughing up,” Patrick says, and his voice sounds rough to his own ears.

“Shit,” Jonny breathes down the line, and Patrick figures that about sums it up.

“I don’t. It just started. When we were on the phone before. Right after I hung up. At least, I think that’s when it started. But it feels like I’m forgetting something. Or not remembering something. But I can’t remember what it is I’m not remembering. Obviously. And I haven’t talked to anyone else about it. Except Jackie. I called her. She said to call Erica. And a doctor. But I don’t. What do I say to a doctor? They’ll think I’m nuts. _I_ think I’m nuts.”

“You’re not nuts,” Jonny confirms. “Well, probably you are, you play hockey, I’ve been told this makes us all a little nuts, but I can see the flowers you’re holding in the photo, and they look pretty damn real, so unless this is a really elaborate prank – in which case you’re not crazy, but you are dead – I can confirm that you’re not imagining them.”

Another petal forces its way up out of Patrick’s throat. “Thanks,” he rasps, then, “I think it’s getting worse.”

There’s a tense sort of silence for a moment, broken only by Patrick’s ragged breathing.

When Jonny speaks, it’s more tentative than Patrick’s heard him in a long time. “You want me to come over there? Maybe I can help? Make you tea, or something?”

The tightness in Patrick’s chest is only partly due to whatever’s quite probably literally taking root there. “Don’t you dare,” he manages to grit out. “Bad enough when I thought it was the virus. Who knows what the hell this is, or if it’s contagious?”

“Patrick –”

Patrick’s phone starts buzzing in his hand, and he’d sigh in relief if he could get the breath. “Erica’s calling,” he tells Jonny.

“Don’t you hang up on me again,” Jonny warns.

“She’ll have talked to Jackie,” Patrick insists. “I have to take this.”

“Patrick, just let me –”

“Stay put, Jonny. I’ll call you back later.”

“Patrick –”

“Bye.” Patrick disconnects before Jonny can get out his argument, and switches over to his sister.

+

“Jacks said you came at her with something crazy,” Erica announces without preamble, “but that you’re actually being legit, so hit me.”

It’s not exactly how Patrick expected the conversation to start, but he can work with it. “I started coughing up flowers earlier today. At least, I think it started earlier today. Jackie didn’t tell you what’s going on?”

“What kind of flowers?”

“Seriously, that’s what you’re asking me?” Patrick squints more closely down at the tissue full of flower bits. “I don’t know, they’re purple with yellow middles. Dark purple. Here, I’ll send a picture. I don’t think I’ve seen them before. Does it make a difference?”

There’s a buzz as the picture goes through to Erica’s phone, a pause, then, “Wow. Shit. You’re serious?”

“Yes?” Patrick frowns out at the window across the room. “I thought Jackie already explained that to you.”

“She did, but I thought you were pranking me. You’re not pranking me?”

“No!” Patrick lets his head fall against the back of the couch, because his sisters are actually going to be the death of him if whatever’s growing on his insides doesn’t kill him first. “Why the hell would I prank you about something like this?”

“I don’t know.” There’s an almost audible shrug in Erica’s tone. “Boredom? Retribution for the watermelon thing? Jackie apparently still isn’t over that.”

Patrick refuses to engage on that one. “I’m not pranking you.”

“I got that. Have you googled?”

“Googled?”

“Yeah, there’s this great thing called the internet, it knows all sorts of weird things.” Erica sounds perfectly serious, and not at all like she’s being an ass on purpose. She was definitely dropped on her head as a child. Not that it was Patrick’s fault, of course. Someone had foolishly allowed Patrick to hold her when he’d been just barely three, and that hadn’t ended well. “Maybe one of the weird things it knows is how a human being can cough up flowers. Ask Jess, she’s good at that sort of thing.”

“Coughing up flowers?” Patrick asks. “Or knowing weird things?

“Finding weird things on the internet,” Erica clarifies. “But also knowing weird things, yes, because she finds weird things on the internet.”

“I don’t even know what to do with that sentence,” Patrick admits.

“Call Jessica,” Erica advises. “That’s what you do with it.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“Anytime, big bro,” Erica’s tone clearly indicates that she recognizes the sarcasm in Patrick’s, and has chosen to ignore it, because she’s _magnanimous like that, Patty, and don’t you forget it._

“Love you,” Patrick tells her, even though she doesn’t deserve it, because otherwise he’d call her on being an ass in this, his time of need, and if he dies of whatever this thing is, he doesn’t want to go out on a sour note with her.

“Love you, too, Patty.” And that, at least, sounds sincere.

It’s not until Patrick has hung up with Erica and dialed Jessica’s number that he realizes he hadn’t coughed up any flowers while on the phone with his sister, and that, although his chest is still uncomfortably tight, he’s not having as much trouble breathing as he was while on the phone with Jonny.

+

“Hey, Patty, how’re you feeling?” Jessica asks when she picks up, because she is a decent human, and Patrick’s favorite sister, even if it took her forever to answer and she still sounds distracted.

“I’m coughing up flowers,” Patrick says bluntly, because he can’t quite take the windup anymore.

“What, like Hanahaki?”

“Like what?”

“Hanahaki,” Jess explains, “You get sick and cough up flowers, and it’s all tied to… tied to – wait,” Jessica abruptly sounds fully focused. “Did you say _you_ were coughing up flowers?”

“Since this morning,” Patrick tells her. “At least, I think just since this morning. That doesn’t feel right, somehow, but I don’t know why. I’m pretty sure I’d remember something like coughing up flowers, and it’s just been regular coughing for the last week and a half.”

“Okay, so, you, a real person, are actually coughing up real flowers, here in the real world.” Jessica sounds like she’s processing, so Patrick keeps his mouth shut. “Right. Okay. We can figure this out. So.”

There’s the sound of clicking in the background, but it sounds more like Jessica is drumming her nails against a hard surface while she thinks rather than typing.

Patrick knows better than to interrupt Jessica’s thought process, but sitting still is abruptly too much, so he pushes up from the couch to pace, fingers tap-tapping lightly across each piece of furniture he passes, not quite in time with his sister’s staccato beat or the occasional light, flowerless cough that works its way up from his chest.

The abrupt snap of Jessica’s fingers startles Patrick out of the daze he’d fallen into, and he stops in front of his living room windows. “Okay,” she says again. “What do you know about Hanahaki?”

Uncertain if it’s meant to be rhetorical after the start of their conversation, Patrick doesn’t answer, but when Jessica doesn’t follow it up with anything, he says, “Nothing?” lilting it up into a question.

Jessica huffs a breath directly into Patrick’s ear. “Fair. Hanahaki is a made-up disease – or I thought it was – that’s a – a trope, I guess, in manga and anime. It’s Japanese, or the term is, but I’m pretty sure it’s popular in China and Korea. It’s. Well. The idea is that it’s tied to unrequited love.”

Patrick blinks. His reflection in the window glass blinks back. “Unrequited love?”

“Well, usually, in the stories, it’s almost always actually requited, but basically what happens is the ‘victim’ –” Patrick can hear the air quotes around the word “– grows flowers in their chest – around their lungs and heart – until they find out that it’s mutual. It’s all very angsty, and full of pining, and coughing up either their true love’s favourite flower, or a flower in their true love’s favourite color, or something else significant, and everyone being afraid the person is going to die, and then there are big reveals and kissing, or whatever, and everyone lives happily ever after.”

“Okay,” Patrick says slowly. “And in the real world?”

There’s a noise over the line that Patrick can’t identify. “No clue. It’s not real. I mean,” Jessica rapidly backpedals, “I believe you, this isn’t the kind of thing you make up – certainly not the kind of thing _you_ would make up – but as far as I know, it’s fictional.”

“So what do I do?” Patrick’s trying not to think about the fact that he has a fictional condition, and is getting advice from his baby sister on how to handle it. The tissue full of flower petals staring at him from the coffee table is enough to make him want to panic again all on its own, finding out it shouldn’t be possible in the real world isn’t all that surprising considering he has been _coughing up flower petals_.

“Well,” Jessica draws the vowel out. “Do you know who you’re in love with?”

It’s clearly not meant to be a trick question, but Patrick can’t think of anyone, had broken up with more than one girlfriend _because_ he wasn’t in love with them and hadn’t wanted to keep stringing things along. “I’m not in love with anyone.”

“Right,” Jessica says, and for the first time sounds as skeptical as their sisters.

“There isn’t anyone,” Patrick insists, then has to cover the phone to cough.

“Hanahaki says otherwise,” Jessica tells him primly when he stops.

The flower petals in his hand seem to agree with her, but he still can’t think of anyone. “If you have ideas, I’d love to hear them.”

“You said you started coughing about a week and a half ago, right?”

Patrick nods slowly, then remembers she can’t see him. “Yeah. I’d been feeling kind of off before then, but I didn’t really notice it until I started quarantining, and didn’t have other stuff going on, and then it started getting worse. But I didn’t start coughing up flowers until today. I was on the phone with Jonny, and I just started coughing and couldn’t stop.” And then Patrick’s coughing again, as if just the memory could trigger it.

When the fit stops, Patrick has another handful of petals to drop on the coffee table as he slumps back onto the couch, suddenly exhausted.

“You were talking to Jonny?” Jessica prompts, and Patrick remembers he’d been saying something.

“Yeah, he was just being nosy, and then saying some stupid shit about breaking quarantine to come over here,” Patrick gives a sharp cough that dislodges a single petal, “but when I hung up I started spitting up flowers.”

“So you’d say it probably started when talks about a lockdown started, and got worse when it actually happened, and you had to hole up by yourself,” Jessica summarizes.

“I guess,” Patrick stares down at the small pile of petals, and has a sudden horrible thought. “You don’t think it’s hockey do you?”

“What?”

“I mean. I love hockey. It got taken away, and now I have plants growing in my lungs. What do I do, hope they let us play again before I suffocate?”

“Oh my god, Patrick,” Jessica might sound more exasperated than Patrick has ever heard her. “What is wrong with you? It’s _Jonny_ , you idiot.”

For a second, everything freezes. “Jonny. What?”

Jessica hisses out a breath right into Patrick’s ear. “ _Hockey_? You’d better hope it’s not hockey, hockey’s never going to love you back. Why are you such a _boy_?”

Patrick’s brain still seems to be glitching somehow, because. “You said Jonny?”

“ _Duh_. You’ve only been in love with him forever.”

“I haven’t –” Patrick tries to say, but Jessica steamrollers right over him.

“And now you’re being forced apart and you promptly get sick? And even _talking_ about him makes you cough up flowers.”

Patrick opens his mouth to refute it, but promptly coughs up another handful of petals.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Jessica says when Patrick has his breath back again. It sounds like a dare.

For once, Patrick doesn’t take the dare. Instead, he thinks about it. She’s not wrong about the timing of the flowers. It’s only been a day, he can remember each time the petals came up. And maybe. Maybe she’s not wrong about the rest of it. He definitely loves Jonny. They’ve been best friends for years. Jonny’s been his rock, the one constant he’s had both on ice and off since he was drafted, since they were both just stupid kids trying to figure out how to survive in the NHL, how to revive a failing franchise, the weight of it on their shoulders in a way not even the rest of the core could understand. And he’s had passing fantasies about Jonny. No more than, say, Tyler, or anyone else, but at least a few of his solid, go-to, spank bank favourites involve Jonny’s arms, or thighs, or his ridiculous ass. He’s never really thought about _dating_ Jonny, but he’s never thought overly much about dating _anyone_ , including the people he was actually dating. And minus the flowers and candy and Valentine’s Day gifts, he kind of _is_ dating Jonny, in a platonic kind of way. They go out to eat, or cook in together. They go to movies and concerts and baseball games. They spend holidays with each other’s families, or just the two of them when they don’t have time to travel. They practically live together on the road, even though they don’t have to anymore, and they spend more time together than apart even when they’re home. If he thinks about it, he wouldn’t be _opposed_ to dating Jonny for real. He’s not loving the idea of flowers just now, and he’s pretty sure Jonny would laugh at him if he bought him candy, but he knows Jonny well enough to know the kind of romantic gestures he _would_ like, and the thought of making Jonny smile sets off something warm in Patrick’s chest, under the knot that’s making it hard for him to breathe. The less-than-platonic thoughts set off something warm a little lower, but that’s nice, too.

“Huh,” is what Patrick ends up saying out loud.

“No shit,” Jessica replies, like she’s been privy to Patrick’s entire thought process, and maybe she has, because if he thinks about it, he does talk about Jonny a lot, and all three of his sisters have been incredibly tolerant of it over the years.

“So what do I do?” he asks.

“Go get your man,” Jessica laughs.

“Jess, we’re quarantining,” Patrick reminds her, trying to be patient, since she’s been remarkably patient with him, but he needs to figure this out, because it’s starting to feel like his lungs are locking up, and he doesn’t think coughing will help much. “I can’t just _go get him_. And what if he’s not interested?”

“He’s interested,” Jessica tells him, the same way she’d tell him he’s being stupid. “Trust me. I’ve seen you together. We’ve all seen you together. Jacks and Erica and I have a bet going on when you’ll get your heads out of your asses.”

“Oh.” Patrick hadn’t realized they were that bad. Really hadn’t even noticed at all. But still. “And quarantine?”

“Patty, you have literally come down with a fictional disease over this guy, and will _actually die_ if you don’t get him to tell you he’s in love with you. I think you can break quarantine for this. Also, you’ve both been tested and come back negative. Wear a mask, wash your hands, and _go get your man_.”

Right, Patrick thinks, and says “Right,” out loud, just because he’s pretty sure Jessica can’t read his mind. Then, “There’s someone at the door,” because someone is banging on the door, and his brain is still busy trying to process everything, but he’s pretty sure no one should be at his door right now.

“Well, answer it,” Jessica tells him, and, again, Patrick hears _you idiot_. “And then –”

“– go get your man,” Patrick finishes with her, crossing to the door. “Yes, I know.”

Only Patrick maybe doesn’t have to go anywhere, because he pulls open the door, and Jonny’s standing on the other side.

“Jonny,” Patrick says, brain screeching to a halt.

“Oh shit,” Jessica says in his ear. “You got this, bro!” And the line goes dead.

+

“Tazer,” Patrick says, a little inanely. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Jonny echoes. He looks a bit like Patrick feels, flushed and a little wild around the eyes, like something absolutely insane has happened, and he maybe thought the world was ending for a minute there, but something flipped, or someone scored, and now it looks like there’s hope for it to end better than he ever could have imagined. Patrick has no idea why Jonny looks like that right now.

“I told you not to come over here,” Patrick reminds him, because he is, in fact, an idiot.

“I know.” Jonny looks, if anything, even more wild around the eyes, and his chest is still heaving rapidly like he’s just finished a bag skate. “But you’re coughing up flowers, and I. Well. You know.”

Patrick doesn’t know. “I don’t know,” he says. “Did you run here? How did you get in? I thought they weren’t letting anyone up.”

“I didn’t run the whole way,” Jonny says defensively, like that makes it better. “And they always let me in. Is it Hanahaki?”

“What do you know about Hanahaki?” Patrick just heard about it for the first time maybe five seconds ago, and here’s Jonny asking about it like it’s the flu.

Jonny looks at him like he’s nuts. “I looked it up. What else was I supposed to do? You drop a bomb like that and hang up, and I’m just supposed to twiddle my thumbs?”

So maybe Patrick is a bit nuts. But in his defense, he started coughing up flowers, and he might be dying because of it.

“Is it Hanahaki?” Jonny presses.

Patrick nods, steps back, and tips his head back towards his living room, because this isn’t a conversation they need to have in the hallway.

Jonny steps inside and lets the door close behind him, but doesn’t move to pass Patrick, just plants himself like he’s on the dot, bracing for a faceoff. And then doesn’t say anything. He just stands there, watching Patrick like he’s waiting.

 _Fuck it,_ Patrick thinks, and opens his mouth to just say it, and starts hacking instead.

By the time he has another full flower in his hand, Jonny’s moved to brace him, helping to hold him upright, which is just as well, because Patrick’s legs feel like they’re going to give out on him.

“Patrick,” Jonny starts, but Patrick stops him with the hand still gripping his phone on his shoulder.

“No, wait.” Patrick breathes for a long minute, shallow breaths that are all he can manage. When he feels steady enough, he pushes himself upright, and lets Jonny go. “I’m in love with you,” he says bluntly, voice strained but steady, because may as well rip the bandage off. “I guess I’ve been in love with you for a long time, and just didn’t. Well. You know.”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, and he’s reaching out again to grip Patrick’s arms. “I do know.” He still looks a little wild around the edges, but he’s grinning, and Patrick doesn’t quite know what to do with that.

“Do you?” he asks. “Because I needed Jess to spell it out for me, and even then it took me a bit.”

“Can’t have taken that long,” Jonny points out. “You still thought it was the virus this morning.”

“And you just, what, already knew?”

Jonny rolls his eyes. “Don’t be an ass. I’d have said something if I knew. But it wasn’t that hard to connect the dots, once I was thinking about it as a possibility.”

Patrick coughs again, briefly this time, jerking out of Jonny’s hold to cover his mouth. He crushes the petals that come up in the hand already holding the flower, and shoves his phone in his pocket. “Would you really have said something if you’d known?” he asks. “Before, I mean.”

Jonny frowns. “Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick answers honestly. “I don’t know that I’d have thought you’d be interested, and why mess with a good thing, right?”

“You’re saying something now.”

Patrick shrugs, coughs again, just once, and adds the petal to the collection. He should probably find a tissue or something. “Not like there’s a status quo to keep, at this point. Either you feel the same or I’m dead,” he says, and he’s not sure where he’s finding his calm, except it’s Jonny, and Patrick’s weirdly sure things are going to be just fine. Jonny’s here, after all.

“But no pressure?” Jonny asks, and he’d flinched at Patrick’s words, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth again already.

“No pressure at all,” Patrick assures him, and promptly coughs up another petal.

Jonny’s already reaching for him again, catches Patrick by the wrist this time, and uses it to pull him closer. “You know I feel the same, right?”

Patrick grins up at him. “Jess knew,” he admits. “So I was trusting her.” He jerks back abruptly to cough again, brings up another flower. “You might need to actually say it, though,” he manages, then coughs up another flower. It hurts like hell, but somehow his chest feels a little looser.

The look on Jonny’s face is fierce as he takes Patrick’s empty hand, looks him straight in the eye, and says, without hesitation, “Patrick, I’m in love with you.” And then the look crumples as Patrick collapses against him, coughing more violently than ever, hard enough he can’t breathe, and everything else loses focus.

When Patrick comes back to himself, he’s sitting on the floor of his hallway, half propped up against Jonny’s chest, with a pile of purple and yellow flowers on the ground next to him. He feels light, chest clear and breathing easier than it’s been in what feels like forever. Jonny’s carding the fingers on one hand slowly through Patrick’s hair, the other arm wrapped carefully around his waist. It feels nice.

“You back with me?” Jonny asks, voice low.

Patrick hums in response, leans a little more into the hand in his hair.

“You scared the shit out of me just now,” Jonny continues conversationally. “If you ever pull anything like that again, I’ll kill you myself.”

Patrick laughs, can’t help it. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He turns awkwardly so they’re practically nose to nose, legs hooked uncomfortably over Jonny’s knees. “You saved my life,” he says. “My hero.” He means it to come out light and easy, half-joking, but all he can manage is sincere. He leans in to press a kiss to Jonny’s mouth, partly to cover, and partly because he thinks that’s probably allowed now.

The kiss is warm and sweet, and Patrick can feel it right down to his toes. Jonny’s arms wrap around him more tightly, and he makes a noise of protest when Patrick pulls away, chasing after his mouth for a second kiss, and then a third, until Patrick laughs again, and pushes Jonny back with a hand on his face.

“That’s how you treat your hero?” Jonny asks, pulling Patrick’s hand away. His voice his teasing, but the look on his face would be a pout on anyone else.

Patrick shakes his head and heaves himself to his feet, hauling Jonny up after him. “I taste like a greenhouse,” he says. “Let me brush my teeth, and I’ll thank you properly.”

Jonny’s not-a-pout dissolves into a smirk, and Patrick can’t the laugh bubbling up in him again, revels in being able to breathe enough for it. “I do love you, you know,” Jonny tells him.

Patrick looks down at the pile of flowers on the floor, then back up at Jonny, taking a deep, clean breath. “I know,” he says, and presses another closed-mouth kiss to Jonny’s lips.


End file.
